Lyrics

As I was writing this album, a guy was eating breakfast with his family in New Mexico and then driving to fight a war in Afghanistan, then driving back home, past strip malls and fast food joints and convenience stores. And maybe when he got back to his house, someone he loved asked him about his day. How do you answer a question like that?

Peter Cooper (Well Known Music, SESAC, admin. by BMG Chrysalis)

The modern day fighter goes
To southern New Mexico
He pilots a flying machine
And everyday he comes back
Coffee black, air attack
Joystick and throttle
And video screen
And we boast of precision
And cheer on the mission
So clean now, so bloody before
Thousands of miles from the battlefield
Of our quiet little war

There’s hellfire missiles
Where once there were pistols
To take them down
One at a time
Remote, remote control
Push button, rock and roll
Drive home by dinner
And never you mind
It used to be hand to hand
Can you imagine, man?
The bayonettes on the Normandy shore
The waves were crashing louder than
Our quiet little war

Bombs away
Miles away

Over there, overhead
Skies full of fear and dread
Moaning a reaper’s lullaby
The kids and the killers
Mothers and sons
The innocents and the guilty ones
And one man decides
Who will live, who will die
Where’s the man who runs this show?
Alamagordo, New Mexico
Making the plane engines roar
They buzz and howl all through the night
In our quiet little war
They buzz and howl all through the night
In our quiet little war